I spent much of the last week in the UK coaching and teaching. Whether in the context of creating the impossible, financial fearlessness, or consulting with big and small businesses alike, one of the key themes that kept emerging was the impact of truly seeing how much more we are than the “little selves” we work so hard each day to develop and improve.
While many different metaphors for this emerged over the 5 days, the one that perhaps struck me the deepest was of the difference between the weather and the sky:
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When it comes to the weather of our emotional lives, many of us spend an inordinate amount of time trying to control things so we experience all sunshine and little or no rain. Others seek to justify the importance of their anger or sadness or fear, as if the awesome power of a thunderstorm made it more significant than the placid sunshine of a summer’s day or the gentle, cleansing patter of a spring rain.
Yet just for a minute or two, imagine yourself to be the sky. As the sky, we don’t need to control the weather and we don’t need to deify it either. It comes and it goes and it changes and changes again, just like our moods go up and down in response to the general tone of our thinking throughout the day.
I honestly believe the sky doesn’t mind what weather is taking place inside it. Day or night and regardless of what the weather happens to be in this moment, as the sky we remain eternally vast, and the light of the sun continues to shine brightly within us even when it’s obscured by darkness or the clouds.
And because at some level we know we’re the sky, even in those moments that we shrink back down in consciousness and feel ever so small and helpless and alone, we still don’t need to struggle to control the weather. We can bundle up our overcoats, put on our galoshes and go out singing in the rain, knowing without doubt that “this too will pass” and eagerly awaiting our next moment in the sun.
Have fun, learn heaps, and when life gives you lemons, be sure to say “thank you”…
With love,
